28 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR 
ized to veto zemstvo appropriations that were in excess of the limits 
prescribed for their budgets. 
But the demands of practical life proved stronger than all written 
laws. The desirability of the zemstvo appropriations was so obvious 
that it was found impossible to confine the budgets to the narrow 
limits allowed under the new law. And thus the budgets, in spite of 
all attempts to pare them, continued to increase after 1900 in prac- 
tically the same proportion as before: during the five years before 
1900, the budgets of all the zemstvos had increased by 40 per cent, 
and during the following five-year period the rate of increase was 
39 per cent. 
But while the new law failed to attain its immediate object, it gave 
the authorities an additional weapon against the zemstvos. This 
weapon was utilized by the Government at the end of the nineties, 
in its struggle with the zemstvos over the school question. This arose 
out of the attempt of the Government to substitute parish schools 
for the secular primary schools maintained by the zemstvos. In the 
end the zemstvos were victorious, for, notwithstanding very sub- 
stantial appropriations by the Holy Synod, the parish schools did 
not prosper and were unable to compete with the schools of the zem- 
stvos. So manifest was the superiority of the latter that the peas- 
ants themselves began to clamor for zemstvo rather than parish 
schools, and the Government was obliged to yield. 
Need of a Reform. 
As the work of the zemstvos developed and expanded, at the be- 
ginning of the twentieth century, the need of a comprehensive zem- 
stvo reform made itself increasingly felt. The area of land held by 
the nobility continued to shrink rapidly, and the number of land- 
owners of this class had in many districts dwindled so far that a 
deputy elected to the zemstvos by the nobles sometimes represented 
only two or three voters. In some places the voters of this class who 
attended the zemstvo assemblies were even fewer than the deputies 
whom they were entitled to choose, and those present then simply 
elected themselves deputies. In these circumstances it was only natu- 
ral that the control in a number of zemstvos should finally be con- 
centrated in the hands of two or three aristocratic families, upon 
whose will now depended very largely the zemstvo activity of entire 
districts. Of course, such a state of affairs was bound to undermine